At The Store Room, many of our customers are students who store their university belongings with us over summer, or their placement year. Five out of our six storage facilities are located in university towns, for example our Salford self storage facility is conveniently located, less than three miles away from Salford University.
Anna, our corporate development executive, used self storage while she was on her placement year and has come up with some useful tips for students and graduates navigating interviews and assessment centres.
Assessment Centres
These can be quite long and tiring because you must absorb lots of new information and be thinking about how you can present yourself in the best way. Try to relax, and remember, if you have any questions, just ask – no one wants you to fail. Below are some things you may encounter in an assessment centre:
Icebreakers
These can be anything from telling the group something about yourself (so have an interesting fact ready that shows a good quality e.g. climbed Snowdon which shows determination and commitment), to being asked something simple to get you to relax e.g. did you travel far to get here?
Psychometric Tests
These are tests or questions that help identify your skills, knowledge, and personality, and see if you will be a good fit for the company and how they work. There are so many tests online that you can use to practice.
Group Tasks
If there are lots of tasks try and split them up between the group. Try to make sure everyone is involved, so if one participant is being quiet, ask them for their opinion on things. Try not to designate a timekeeper – everyone should be aware of the time.
Presentation
This may be done to the interviewer, or the interviewer and other candidates. Make sure you have researched your presentation well and try to find something that others may not have considered. If the interviewer asks a question, you don’t know the answer to, write it down and make sure you email the answer after the assessment centre. It can also be helpful to explain at the beginning of the presentation how you would like to address questions; either at the time (so they can be clear on what you’re talking about while you give the presentation) or save all questions to the end (if you don’t want your flow to be interrupted). Either choice if fine, but it’s good to make the audience aware of that before you start presenting.
Interviews
There are 4 core things that a company will ask you about during an interview.
The Company
Make sure you have done your research into the company. Find out their values, anything about their locations, CEO/ Managing Directors, interesting things the company has done, have they been in the news recently? Check their social media (Instagram is a good one to look at that lots of people forget about). Also check company review websites for insider knowledge that may not be on their social media.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Make sure these apply to the job you are applying for. Try not to say ‘perfectionist’ as a weakness – lots of people say this and it’s obvious you’re trying to tell them something that is actually a strength. Instead choose something that you have been working on, e.g. You recognise that sometimes you can be bit disorganised, so you have taken a short course on organisation, and put what you have learnt into practice; making sure all appointments go into your calendar, taking 5 minutes at the end of the day to plan what you need to do tomorrow, using certain software to help you (OneNote) etc.
Situational Questions
These will be asking you to explain a time you did something. Explain it with STAR technique, Situation, Task, Action and Response. Try to use different examples in each situational question, as this allows you to show more of yourself and what you’re interested in while answering the question. Different situational examples include work, university, in a team sport, an extra-curricular activity.
Your Interests
Companies want to know a bit about you to see if you will be a good fit for them and the team you would be going in to. Whatever you are interested in see if the company do anything related to that, and if not, you could suggest how they could incorporate it into their company. If you are interested in charity work, look up things they have done and maybe give them some ideas for new charity events. If you are interested in sport, ask if they have a company team.
Questions to make you stand out:
There are many questions online but here are our 3 favourites
- How did the interviewer get to where they are now?
- If you were to get the job, what could you do in the first 3 months to impress them?
- What news stories could be affecting them? Read the news and ask them how they think something will affect their business now and into the future (and try to have your own answer too to show you have been thinking about it) e.g. How has the fuel shortage impacted your company?